More and more car makers are adding voice control to their cars but there's still a long wait before all cars support voice commands!
Fortunately, you don't have to wait for voice control in your car thanks to alternatives such as the Amazon Echo Dot speaker and Anker's Roav Viva car charger which has Alexa built into it so you can shout commands when connected via bluetooth 4.1, aux wired, Carplay, or Android Auto.
Being a car charger as well as a voice command assistant, makes the Roav Viva a very appealing offering because of its dual purpose. Roav Viva is much easier to setup in your car than the Amazon Echo Dot speaker though you still have to set-up the Roav Viva car charger through your smartphone and an app.
You will need to download the Roav Viva app so you can connect your Alexa account and make the Alexa functionality in the Roav Viva car charger to work.
The Roav Viva app also helps you pair your Roav Viva car charger with your car's bluetooth stereo and control other features like the brightness of the led ring.
Talking about Roav Viva's car charging ability, it is done through your car's 12V socket and via two USB ports located on the side of the Roav Viva. Both USB ports can output a maximum of 5V 4.8A.
Simply plug it into the 12V or 24V socket like you would a normal car charger and "voila" you get high-speed charging via Anker's own fast charging technology called "PowerIQ" which automatically delivers the fastest charge according to your particular device.
While PowerIQ is great, Roav Viva does not support Qualcomm Quick Charge which means you won't be able to get Quick Charge speeds on your Quick Charge devices. If you need a car charge that is Quick Charge compatible, check out the PowerDrive Speed 2 car charger.
While the Alexa voice control feature in the Roav Viva works great, the Roav Viva doesn't yet support Spotify and it doesn't yet have the drop-in feature which you get on normal Amazon Echo Dots and in-home Alexa devices. The drop-in feature is cool because it lets you talk to anyone who also has an Echo Dot like a pair of walkie-talkies.
Another thing to be aware of is that your smartphone must support 4G as the Roav Viva uses a phone's 4G signal to communicate with the Alexa servers.
There is a mute button on front of the Roav Viva car charger which you can tap to mute and unmute the microphones so Alexa is only listening when you want to.
In all, the Roav Viva car charger with Alexa built into it lets you do more than just charge devices (works with car's 12V and trucks 24V DC inputs). You can control Alexa voice service, get voice activated navigation, control music and incoming calls hands-free.